A. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the manufacture of high-quality frozen foods such as ice cream, yogurt, and the like.
B. Prior Art
Frozen food products are typically produced in batch form, i.e., a quantity substantially larger than the amount commonly required by a single user is produced in advance of a specific request and is held available for subsequent dispensing. For example, in machines for dispensing "soft" ice cream to the individual consumer, although an individual consumer might want a serving of only a few ounces, it is common to dispense this from a machine which makes a quantity measured in quarts or gallons in advance of the request and which stores the excess for subsequent sale. The product necessarily deteriorates during this storage, both through oxidation and through the growth of ice crystals which detract from whatever smoothness the product originally possessed when fresh.
Novel apparatus and methods suitable for producing, on demand, quantities of frozen food product such as ice cream, yogurt or the like that range from in the order of ounces to gallons or unlimited amounts is described in a series of patents of which two of the inventors of the present invention are co-inventors, namely, U.S. Pat. No. 5,292,030, "Method And Apparatus For Producing And Dispensing Aerated Products", issued Mar. 8, 1994; U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,967, "Method And Apparatus For Producing And Dispensing Aerated Or Blended Food Products", and U.S. Pat. No. 5,473,909, "Method And Apparatus For Producing And Dispensing Aerated Or Blended Fluid Products", issued Dec. 12, 1995. The teachings of these patents are expressly incorporated herein by reference.